XLII.
Methought, a breath stole and unsealed my eyes
And bared the workings of the carcase world;
An engine, like a skeleton, ever plies
A trade infernal, Death’s flag stood unfurled;
With iron teeth, I mark’d, this hell-fiend tore
The gaspings relics of Creation’s throes;
Fitted to a rack each substance, looming more,
Lengthens unnatural shapes, in awful rows;
And howlings, tears, and shriekings thrill’d the night,
That mourn’d for ever, dumbly consonant;
Each shape, to other bound in pitiless plight,
Reluctant, must destroy, foster, or plant,
What, it knows not, and cares not; whizzing wheels
Whirl, till the sick heart pants, the mad brain reels.
XLIII.
I gazed, with unaccustomed eyes, on night,
Whose blackness dazzled more than midday sun,
It rather seem’d, some new intenser light,
Through which immortal powers, far wandering, run:
I gazed, and hurled my curses at the rage,
That traced its will on such a reckless course;
Methought, a golden form of light did cage
My utterance’ portals, strengthening vision’s source;
And, fool, it cried, look nearer, nor despair.
I saw, ’twas, as the thunder-cloud, that burst
Is glorious with the lightning, a child’s hair
Within whose gold entwined sunbeams are nurst,
No cradle else so sweet; it was the breath
Whose loveliness of life scares dreary death.
XLIV.
Dreams, visions, foolish echoings to the thought,
That homeless wanders for the thing it loves:
The fancies of man’s waking are so fraught
With folly, or philosophy that roves
It knows not where, that ’tis no marvel sleep
Should pass its coinage as the current dross:
Could man contain his dreamings in their keep,
How great a gain should balance little loss:
The world is wearied, to know why it plods
The equal tenour of a various way;
But half attends, smiles sometimes, sometimes nods
O’er its dissection, while its head is grey.
It clears the rubble from its own high-road,
And asks but truth, nor cares to increase its load.